The Canadian Privacy Law Blog: Developments in privacy law and writings of a Canadian privacy lawyer, containing information related to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (aka PIPEDA) and other Canadian and international laws.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Ameriprise Financial, the investment advisory unit spun off from American Express last year, said today that lists with the personal information of about 230,000 customers and financial advisers were potentially exposed to fraud.

The breach occurred in late December after a company laptop was stolen from an employee's car. It contained lists of reassigned customer accounts that were being stored unencrypted on a computer in violation of Ameriprise's rules.

The information on the laptop included the names and Social Security numbers of more than 70,000 current and former financial advisers and the names and internal account numbers of about 158,000 customers. The data was being stored in separate lists, but it is possible that there could be some overlap between the two.

Andy MacMillan, an Ameriprise spokesman, said that it was unlikely the thief knew that the customer and employee data were being stored on the laptop and the risk of "any data being used or discovered is very low." He said no other personal information was exposed.

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